This blog focuses on news and information regarding practice in the federal courts in the Eastern District of California, with a special emphasis on criminal and civil rights cases.

Blog Author

John Balazs is an attorney in Sacramento, California, specializing in criminal defense, including appeals, habeas corpus, pardons, expungements, and civil forfeiture actions. After graduating from UCLA Law School in 1989, he clerked for Judge Harry Pregerson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. John was an Assistant Federal Defender in Fresno and Sacramento from 1992-2001. He currently serves as an adjunct professor in clinical trial advocacy at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law. Please email EDCA items of interest to Balazslaw@gmail.com. Follow me on twitter @balazslaw.

Disclaimer

This blog is for informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog should be construed as legal advice. The law can change rapidly and information in this blog can become outdated. Do your own research or consult with an attorney.

Judge Burell, Jr., Garland E.

June 02, 2017

The Sac Bee, 5/19/17 reports that Judge Burrell rejected prosecutors' request for a prison sentence and instead sentenced Kulwant Singh "Ken" Sandhu to probation after a jury convicted him for making thousands of harassing phone calls to regulatory workers in Washington D.C. about Netflix.

April 09, 2015

A federal judge refused to dismiss a professor's claim that the U.S. Forest Service is damaging the Lake Tahoe watershed by clearing timber and brush and depositing the slash in streams and wetlands.

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. ruled Tuesday that the Forest Service's argument was based upon faulty evidence and that plaintiff Dennis Murphy, Ph.D., did not waive his legal challenge to the Upper Echo Lakes Hazardous Fuels Reduction Projection by failing to comment during a public comment period.

March 29, 2015

Here are excerpts from the Sacramento Bee's take on the mortgage fraud acquittal before Judge Burrell on Thursday:

Two defendants in a mortgage fraud trial in Sacramento federal court had a rare experience Thursday. They were acquitted.

Statistically, it was a notable event.

The jury’s verdict flies in the face of a 93 percent conviction rate in federal criminal cases nationwide.

In the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California, the 2014 conviction rate was 92.7 percent. Of that, 97.8 percent were defendants pleading guilty and 2.2 percent were defendants found guilty at trial. There were 902 defendants convicted; 882 pleaded guilty, 20 were found guilty at trial and six were acquitted.

It is also the first acquittal before U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. in his 23 years on the federal bench.

At the conclusion of a trial that was in session 11 days beginning March 3, the jury found Deborah Loudermilk and Buena Marshall not guilty on all six mail fraud counts they were charged with in the mortgage fraud case.

Reichel said the government’s biggest mistake was using as witnesses four co-defendants of his client who had pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution in return for leniency in sentencing.

He said jurors told him after they were discharged that they resented the fact the case was built around four witnesses who were testifying for reduced prison sentences.

“The jurors felt there should have been some substantial evidence presented other than the testimony of those four,” Reichel said. “And,” he said, “the cross-examination really destroyed their credibility and made them out to be untruthful.

“In the information they supplied to prosecutors in connection with their plea agreements, in the government’s opening statement at trial, and during direct examination of these four, my client was said to have recruited them and explained how the scheme would work,” Reichel said. “On cross-examination, all four of them acknowledged that was not true.”

Loudermilk, 57, of Suisun City, was represented by James Reilly, a criminal defense lawyer from San Rafael with almost 40 years of legal experience. He agreed with Reichel’s assessment of the four defendants turned government witnesses.

December 21, 2013

In the Matthew Davies medical marijuana dispensary case, the final two defendants were sentenced by Judge Burrell on Friday to 42 and 24 month prison terms, Sacramento Bee, 12/20/13, after Davies was sentenced to 60 months the prior Friday. San Jose Mercury News, 12/13/13. No. 2:12-CR-0255-GEB.

August 18, 2013

A federal court of appeals has revived a Placer County mother's lawsuit claiming California prison authorities are responsible for the suicide of her mentally ill son while he was an inmate.

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. tossed the case out 2 1/2 years ago, finding that the evidence presented by Sherie Lemire's attorney did not sustain her claims of constitutional violations and wrongful death.

But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week reversed Burrell and sent the case back to him for trial.

June 25, 2013

In United States v. Johnson, 12-10317 (9th Cir. June 21, 2013) (unpublished), the Ninth Circuit reversed the EDCA court's denial of a suppression motion in a drug trafficking case, rejecting the government's creative theory that, despite the absence of probable cause, the officers' entry into the defendant's backyard was justified under the "knock and talk" doctrine. Congratulations to Assistant Federal Defender Carolyn Wiggin for the big win.

Still insisting he was "blindsided" and pressured by prosecutors and his own attorney to plead guilty, Anthony Vassallo was ushered out of a Sacramento courtroom Friday by deputy U.S. marshals to serve a 16-year sentence in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of millions of dollars.

Vassallo, who ranks with the region's premier fraudsters, pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Feb. 1. He then tried to withdraw his plea, claiming his residency in the Butte County jail made it impossible for him to assist in trial preparation.

When that didn't work, he claimed government prosecutors and agents and defense attorney Mark Reichel ganged up on him to extract a guilty plea to a crime he didn't commit.

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr., who branded Vassallo a "liar" at Friday's hearing, wasn't buying that either. The judge had already declared in a court order that Vassallo had no credibility.

The 34-year-old Vassallo, who lived in Folsom before he was jailed, robbed investors of more than $44.8 million and their peace of mind through the use of a classic Ponzi scheme. He and co-conspirator Kenneth Kenitzer raked in more than $80 million from more than 300 investors in less than three years. True to the age-old Ponzi tradition of robbing Peter to pay Paul, he paid back millions to investors to give them a false sense of security and keep the scheme afloat.

Burrell set a hearing for Aug. 23 to determine the amount of restitution Vassallo will be ordered to pay.

April 13, 2013

The comptroller behind the theft of $18 million in Sacramento County funds was sentenced to 44 months in prison in U.S. District Court on Friday.

Kerry Seaman and another executive at New Jersey-based Ingentra earlier pleaded guilty to stealing payroll taxes from the county and two companies and providing false information to the Internal Revenue Service.

Sacramento County outsourced payroll processing for its special-district employees to Ingentra from 2005 to 2010. Rather than forward all tax payments to the IRS, the company kept $18 million for itself and manipulated documents to understate how much the county owed.

September 23, 2012

Backing up an earlier ruling by a Sacramento judge, a federal appellate court [here] has rejected a challenge by environmentalists to the U.S. Forest Service's effort to reduce the risk of a recurrence of the disastrous Angora fire near South Lake Tahoe in 2007.

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. last year tossed out a lawsuit in which Earth Island Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity claimed the Forest Service ignored the law when it "failed to take a hard look" at the impact of the Angora Fire Restoration Project on a bird species, on future fire behavior and on climate change. The agency addressed these issues "in proportion to (their) significance," Burrell declared.

In a published opinion issued Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Lake Tahoe Forest Plan did not require the Forest Service to demonstrate that the Angora project would maintain viable population levels of certain species, including the black-backed woodpecker.

October 03, 2011

A former Concord police officer told a federal court he shouldn't be jailed for his role in a large indoor marijuana grow in Chico because he thought it was permitted under state law. U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell said the defendant, Damon Todd Rydell, 36, of Redding, violated federal law by cultivating more than 200 plants last year. He sentenced Rydell to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay a fine of $7,500.

Sheriff's deputies, racing to a former horse property near the town of Ione, found 779 marijuana plants, bullet-riddled trailers and a dead man – covered in blood – grasping an empty shotgun.

On Thursday, two days after the wild shooting that allegedly involved gang members trying to steal marijuana, Amador authorities held five young men in custody. They were juggling both a homicide investigation and a probe into possible illicit dealings in the name of medical marijuana.